Mom sick.
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So my kid’s sleep schedule does not want to adjust to school nights. I made the mistake of letting her stay up until 11 p.m. during the summer, and now I’m paying for it. Her bedtime is supposed to be 8:30. I figure if I get her there by 9:00 it’s good. Well, I can lead the kid to bed but I can’t make her go to SLEEP!
“But mom, I’m not tired.” Well, what am I supposed to say to that? If she’s not tired, she’s not tired! You can’t force her to fall asleep! Believe me, I would if I could. So we do this back and forth thing for a couple hours, her getting out of bed and me telling her to go back to bed, she’s got to get up early and I don’t want her to be grouchy in the morning, her saying she’s not tired, she can’t fall asleep, she can’t help it. But then she’s not even TRYING to sleep. She’s reading a book or playing a game or petting the cat. Until finally I’ve lost all patience, and frankly I don’t have much to begin with.
But I’m trying to handle things well because I don’t want the last thing my kid remembers as she falls asleep is that her momma yelled at her. That’s not a good way to fall asleep for either one of us. So last night I got silly. Usually that’s her daddy’s job but I figured I’d give it a try before I resorted to pulling my hair out and duct taping her to the bed. I sat on her bed and took her in my arms (she’s 8; not an easy feat people) and then was rocking her like a baby with very big exaggerated movements and singing Rock a Bye Baby all silly and acting all stupid and the more she laughed the harder and more exaggerated I rocked her until we were both about to fall off the bed when suddenly she says,
“Oh, please stop that now. I’m getting Mom Sick.”
The kid seriously makes me happy.
Summer Says…
Today Summer went into a gas station for me and got me a bottle of pop to drink and herself a donut and a bag of chips. What a combo, huh? Anyway, her hands were pretty full with her purchases and my change and she came back out to the car and said…
“Man, it’s a good thing I didn’t have to carry a massager or I would have DIED….from HEAVINESS.”
WHAT?!? Well, what do you mean a “massager” I asked her. She replied, “You know, like the massager chairs.”
Well, of course that makes perfect sense that she would have picked up one of those at the gas station.
Have I mentioned before how much this kid cracks me up?
Filed under Summer Rose Scrapbooks, Life, Scrapbooking | Comment (1)Heartbroken.
Do you ever take photos on your digital camera and then forget about them? And then days or weeks later you take your memory card and upload the pictures to your computer and you’re like “Wow, I forgot I took those photos.”? Well, that happened to me today. See, a week ago I had to take one of our 2-year-old cats to be put down. I agonized over the decision for months.
I’ve spent the last year taking this cat back and forth to 2 different vets to try to figure out why she’d been urinating in places that are NOT the litter boxes. Weird places, like she jump up on our bed and pee on the quilt WITH ME UNDER IT. Or if I went to Walmart and came home and left the plastic bag on the floor with groceries in it that needed put away, she would come in and pee on the bag. Or bubble wrap that got dropped on the floor. Or a piece of paper that had been knocked off my desk. Or the poor dog’s bed.
I talked to friends about it and researched the internet about it and I prayed to God about it, looking for some sort of sign that I was making the right decision. It was hard for me. And it was one of the hardest things that I’ve had to do so far in my 8 years of being a mother. I wanted to be honest with my daughter so she could say goodbye to her kitty. But it was hard because she wasn’t outwardly suffering in an obvious way, except that she never gained any weight and people were constantly asking “Don’t you guys feed that cat?” and even though she was born in our house and has lived here since she was born she never wanted us to pet her or pick her up or anything like that. It was strange.
Anyway, the day before I told my daughter and she asked me to take a picture (she’s the kid of a scrapbooker, you know), so I did. It was heartwrenching. And then when I saw it again after I downloaded it to my computer, it broke my heart all over again.
Sometimes being a mother sucks, and this has been one of those times. When your kid is sobbing and says to you, “Please don’t do this to me Momma,” it’s like the worst thing ever. I’m having a really hard time with it, with letting go and knowing that I made the right decision. There HAD to be something wrong with the cat even though the vets couldn’t find anything. I’m having a hard time dealing with the guilt and getting the actual event out of my head (the actual experience at the vet was HORRIBLE). I literally haven’t had a good night’s sleep since. So right now I struggle and I hope that with time the guilt goes away and our hearts mend a little. I don’t think I’ll print this photo, though. It’s not a good reminder and there are plenty of other happy photos taken with the cat.
What a week………….
Filed under Life, Scrapbooking | Comment (1)Good Morning.
Happy Friday!
Hope you have a ball today!
Kings Island Adventure.
I literally last went to Kings Island in Ohio 25 years ago for a class trip in the 8th grade. I don’t remember what it looked like back then, but I sure don’t think there were water rides back then. My aunt was taking her daughter to Kings Island for the weekend and invited Summer to go, and I went along. The most memorable part of the day at the park for me was when my camera broke. It was during this log water ride thing.
Here we are going up……..(this was when the guy said maam, you need to put away your camera)
The kids sat in the front row, but my aunt and I had the strategy of sitting in the back seat so that we wouldn’t get as wet as the others. Yeah, that didn’t work out really the way we had planned.
Now here are some other people coming down the hill. It’s not a REAL tall ride, but when you hit the water at the bottom it’s a splash like you can’t believe! See the bridge in the above picture. You come down the hill and then go under the bridge in the log. That’s also the bridge that riders walk back across AFTER they’ve ridden on the boat ride, and it’s timed just perfectly so that as you leave the ride and walk across the bridge the next boat is hitting the bottom and you get wet as you try to go across. Somebody really put some thought into that!
Here are a couple shots I got of the boat hitting the water and going under the bridge. It’s crazy how long the huge wave lasts after they’ve hit the water.
So here’s the part where the camera broke. The kids quickly figure out that if they stand still on the bridge the next boat will splash them, so you can’t get them to leave! It literally is so powerful that it knocks some of the kids off their feet, but they love it. So I decided to get a little closer to the kids so I could capture the looks on their faces when the huge tidal wave came over the top of the bridge and got them.
However, I didn’t realize that I was TOO CLOSE. There I was poised, focusing, ready to snap the photo and then quickly turn away, but instead as I was taking the picture the wave hit ME and just literally drenched my entire left side from head to toe, including the camera. I’m sure the look on my face was priceless. I turn to look at my aunt like “What the hell just happened?” and she is cracking up because the lady standing next to her KNEW what was going to happen and said, “Watch that lady taking the photo. She’s gonna get wet and she has no idea.” Nice, huh? Thanks alot for the heads up lady!
Summerism.
Last night I walked into the living room and found Summer lounging in the recliner with her feet up…….wearing my high heels that I had left sitting out. I said, “Uh, Summer, what are you doing?”
She said, “Mom, I’m following in your footsteps.”
This kid cracks me up!
Filed under Life, Scrapbooking | Comment (1)Ross dresses.
Back in May, my friend Jill in California (who I swear should be a personal shopper for a living!) went shopping and found these adorable dresses at a store called Ross. She showed them on her blog here http://my-so-called-scrappy-life.blogspot.com/2008/05/i-love-ross.html.
They’re all darling! But I live in the Midwest and we don’t have that store here, so I asked her to go back and get one for me and mail it to me. I wanted her to get them ALL for me, but could only afford one and needed it for a wedding. I picked the one that would match my glasses 
My hubby is an amateur photographer and loves to “experiment.” I mean, the man can’t just take a photo! He’s got to take 6 photos each with a different pose or from a different angle or with a different lens. The man is exhausting, I tell ya! Anyway, he took this with his “wide angle lens”, which I actually call his “fishbowl lens” cause I hate the way photos look when he uses it.
The second one is a candid shot and actually one of my favorite photos ever of the two of us.
So, Jill, do I look as cute as you in the dress? HA!
Filed under Life | Comments (3)On being a creative mother.
There is this awesome artist I admire, Keri Smith, who is also a mother, and I recently came across a blog post of hers where she tried to answer someone’s question about whether you could become a mother and still be a creative artist. The part about her answer that got me was what I am pasting below. It really spoke to me and I thought I’d share.
there are moments/days that are so very trying it unbelievable, (and I have the sense that there will be many more of these in the future.) on the whole I believe that this discomfort is not only valuable, but what makes life truly fulfilling. For me life is all about contrast and if you are looking for a smooth and easy, maintenence free life then maybe having a child is not for you. Some days in the beginning I thought, “I have to get up tomorrow and do this all over again? wow.” …
but the rewards are plentiful. what no one can explain to you before you have a child and what you can never understand, (even if someone tries to explain it to you) is how you will love this thing more than anything you’ve ever experienced in your life. It’s like falling in love all over again, but on a new plain of existence. it feels a lot like getting the coolest present ever, something that you want to play with all day and show to everyone you know, (I know this sounds terrible but so what). you want to quit everything and give this little being the best life you can imagine.
It’s hard to explain to someone who isn’t a mother what it’s like to be one, but I love how she tried and she describes how I myself feel quite well.
If you want to read the entire article/answer, it’s here http://www.kerismith.com/blog/archives/000555.html
And because I can’t stand to write anything on here without adding a photo, here’s a mother daughter scrapbook layout from a couple years ago.
If you can’t read my handwriting, here’s what it says:
I have learned…
that life doesn’t always turn out like you plan.
that there’s a reason for everything–maybe you just don’t know what it is.
that my time here could end at any moment; I should try harder to remember that.
that there’s no time like the present, so slow down, spend time with your child NOW, this day, this moment.
that it’s little things that make life sweetest.
(Man, I love this kid.)
Irritated!
I love modern technology, but I can’t stand it when I think I’ve done something correctly and it doesn’t work! Sorry for you who have wondered what the video was and couldn’t get it to play. It worked when I wrote that post, but it won’t play for me now either. Darnit!
So, let’s try it this way. I’ll send you to youtube where the video is and you can watch it directly from there. Go here to see it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epUk3T2Kfno
and hopefully that works!
Filed under Life | Comment (0)Does it get cuter than this?
Um…..NO. It doesn’t.
I was over at the fussypants blog (who by the way is hilariously funny) and saw this video. Seriously, it’s like the cutest thing I think I’ve ever seen! Watch all the way to the end cause just when you think it can’t possibly get more cute, it does!
Filed under Life | Comment (0)
